Technology looks different in every classroom, but in every classroom technology seems to be the key component to meaningful student learning. Across the board students are more engaged in their learning when technology is involved. In my kindergarten classroom the students are far more engaged in a math lesson when I use a unitedstreaming video, versus when I demonstrate the same lesson with manipulatives, such as cubes or blocks.
Regardless of the demographics in your classroom technology seems to be the heart and soul of getting and keeping students engaged in the classroom. The visual appeal, ability to interact, and hear sounds besides one continuous teacher’s voice, is more meaningful for students in the education system than the traditional styles of teaching from the past. The methods of teaching 10 years ago are not conducive to the needs of students who are currently in the classroom.
Kindergarten students, high school students, special education students, and every student in between, have a great need to be able to utilize technology in the classroom to prepare for their future. It is a teacher’s responsibility to make sure students inside their classroom are surrounded by the tools they will need to be successful in their future. In today’s education system it is never too early to introduce new technology into the classroom, especially when you hear a five year old student talking about an I-Pod.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Your anecdote about students being more attentive when watching a clip than when listening to the teacher's voice could have been a story from my classroom. We teachers talk so much that some of our students begin to zone us out. While there are other solutions to this besides technology (I could talk less, for one), the use of tech in the classroom is certainly a strong incentive for students to remain engaged.
On a slightly tangential note: I've found that my students are much more excited to discuss and analyze a video clip when it is short and inserted carefully into a lesson. This creates more work on my part (I've got to find just the right clip and decide where to insert it) but the short clips seem to better motivate my kids than the longer ones in which they, again, zone out.
As a former kindergarten teacher, I completely agree with you. I taught kindergarten in two different schools, one with technology and one without. At the school where I had access to technology, I found my teaching to be more engaging for the students. Plus, the kids love to use computers and such for their own learning. I really miss having access to united streaming (my kids always loved the videos).
We are definately in a day and age where the students are used to gaining information and entertainment visually. That is to say from technlogy. So it only makes sense that they would rather wathc a vidoe lesson that listen and wathc a live demonstration. I would wonder if you made a video of yoiu teaching the skill if they would be more interested in wathcing the video than the live. I would guess they would. As teachers we have to balance the use of technlogy and live teaching to the benefits of our students. They still need us we are not obsolete. We just have to be creative with teaching and using technology.
I couldn’t agree with you more. In kindergarten, and I imagine that at every grade level too, students need to be visually and aurally stimulated to remain focused and engaged throughout a lesson. Students seem to tune out after the first five minutes of a lesson when they only hear the teacher’s voice. Using technology in the kindergarten classroom is something that students look forward to because it’s their first experience with something new and they all want to have a chance to use it. In my experience, I use technology throughout many of my lessons that when I don’t use it, my students ask “are you going to use the ….?”or “will we get a turn using the ….?” It almost seems that nowadays technology in the classroom is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity for learning.
Your summary of using new technology in the classroom no matter what age is so true! There is such a plethera of options and most children use technology at home, so they are more engaged when using such technology to learn. However, as teachers, we need to be careful not to try to always be entertaining our students, but making sure we are still teaching them the fundamentals; they need the writing, speaking, math, etc. skills to be successful in today's world. Fortunately, now we have so many more engaging ways to teach this and we live in an area where more is available to us.
Post a Comment